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      Thirty domestic bathrooms by architects including concrete, travertine and pink-tiled designs

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      Making improvements to your home because you’re spending so much more time there? Here are 30 bathrooms designed by architects to give you some ideas.

      Minimal Fantasy apartment by Patricia Bustos Studio
      Designed by Patricia Bustos Studio, this pink bathroom has shiny pink curtains and mirrors with pink frames to match the rest of the apartment in Madrid, which is almost entirely pink.

      Botaniczna Apartment by Agnieszka Owsiany Studio
      This bathroom in a Poznań apartment designed by Agnieszka Owsiany Studio for a couple working in medicine has travertine marble walls and a travertine basin.

      House 6 by Zooco Estudio
      Zooco Estudio covered the walls and floors of this bathroom in Madrid with white tiles and blue grouting. A geometric counter clad with blue tiles snakes across the ground and up the wall to form a storage closet in the space.

      Porto house by Fala Atelier 
      Fala Atelier used square white tiles for this bathroom in a house in Porto. The tiles are paired with marble countertops, blue cupboard doors and a large round mirror over the sink.

      Makepeace Mansions apartment by Surman Weston 
      The bathroom in this apartment designed by Surman Weston is finished with hand-painted tiles that are arranged to form a black-and-white graphic pattern that mimics the housing block’s mock-Tudor facade.

      Unit 622 by Rainville Sangaré
      Set in an apartment within Moshe Safdie’s brutalist Habitat 67 housing complex in Montreal, this bathroom designed by Rainville Sangaré has colour-changing shower screens.

      Rylett House by Studio 30 Architects
      Created as part of the renovation of a Victorian maisonette in London, this small en-suite bathroom is finished with a black grid of tiles and a bright yellow wall.

      Cats’ Pink House by KC Design Studio 
      This holiday home in Taiwan is designed with a focus on the owner’s cat and includes cat ladders, a rotating carousel-shaped climbing frame and a fluffy pink swing. Its bathroom combines larger square pink floor tiles with a wall made from terrazzo with large flecks of pink and grey.

      Borden house by StudioAC
      This en-suite bathroom at the front of a house designed by StudioAC has pitched walls covered in grey tiles.

      Spinmolenplein apartment by Jürgen Vandewalle
      This bathroom in an apartment in Ghent’s tallest building is enclosed within a white lacquered-wood box and is accessed by a set of barn-style doors. Internally the bathroom is finished with earthy, pink-tone micro cement to contrast the white wood.

      Cloister House by MORQ
      The rammed-concrete walls of Cloister House in Perth have been left exposed in the bathroom where they are softened with timber slatted floors and a timber-clad bath and sink.

      Akari House by Mas-aqui
      Designed by Architecture studio Mas-aqui as part of a renovation of a 20th-century apartment in the mountains above Barcelona, this small bathroom combines red floor tiles with white wall tiles.

      Louisville Road house by 2LG Studio
      Created by 2LG Studio as part of a colourful overhaul of a period house in south London, this bathroom has pale marble walls and a baby-blue tiled floor. The baby-blue colour was also used for the taps and mirror surround, which contrast with the coral vanity unit.

      Apartment A by Atelier Dialect
      This en-suite bathroom, which forms part of a large open-plan master bedroom in an Antwerp apartment designed by Belgian studio Atelier Dialect, has a rectangular freestanding tub at its centre.
      The bath is wrapped in mirrored steel to compliment a stainless-steel basin, while the walls are finished with subway tiles and mint-green paint.

      House V by Martin Skoček
      Martin Skoček used salvaged bricks throughout the interiors of this gabled house near Bratislava, Slovakia. The master bedroom has a dramatic en-suite bedroom with a freestanding bathtub that is alined with the apex of the pitched timber roof.

      308 S apartment by Bloco Arquitetos 
      The bathroom in this 1960s apartment renovated by Bloco Arquitetos in Brasília incorporates white tiles as a reference to architecture in the city in the 6os. The white walls and ceiling are combined with a vanity counter and floor made from Branco São Paulo – a matte-finished granite.

      Mexican holiday home by Palma
      This slim shower room is tucked behind a bedroom in a holiday home designed by architecture studio Palma. It has slatted wooden doors that open directly to the exterior.

      South Yarra Townhouse by Winter Architecture
      This bathroom designed by Winter Architecture in a Melbourne townhouse combines exposed-aggregate grey tiles and thin, horizontal white tiles with towels rails and taps made from gold-hued brass.

      Edinburgh apartment by Luke and Joanne McClelland
      The main bathroom in this Georgian apartment in Edinburgh has glazed green tiles on the lower half of the walls and the front of the tub. Alongside the bath, a sink was placed on a restored 1960s wooden sideboard by Danish designer Ib Kofod Larsen.

      Ruxton Rise Residence by Studio Four
      Built for Studio Four’s co-director Sarah Henry, this tranquil house in the Melbourne suburb of Beaumaris has bathrooms with surfaces covered in tadelakt – a waterproof, lime-based plaster that is often used in Moroccan architecture to make sinks and baths.

      House with Three Eyes by Innauer-Matt Architekten
      In House with Three Eyes, the bathroom has a full-height glass wall that has views out across the surrounding Austrian countryside. The marble-clad bath is positioned right next to this window so bathers can enjoy the views.

      Hygge Studio by Melina Romano
      Brazilian designer Melina Romano designed this fern green coloured bathroom to extend from a bedroom in a São Paulo apartment. It features a striking black toilet, a corner mirror and a vanity unit built from red brick that has an open slot for storing towels and toiletries.

      Ready-made Home by Azab
      This en-suite bathroom in Azab’s Ready-made Home is separated from the bedroom by an angled blue curtain. The triangular bathroom space is differentiated from the bedroom by its blue tiles on the floor, which extend up the front of the bath and walls.

      Immeuble Molitor apartment by Le Corbusier
      This small bathroom was designed by Le Corbusier in the Immeuble Molitor apartment in Paris that was his home for over 30 years. The room, which has walls that are painted sky blue and covered with small white tiles, has a short bath and sink.

      Apartment in Born by Colombo and Serboli Architecture
      Colombo and Serboli Architecture added a new guest bathroom to this apartment in Barcelona’s historic El Born neighbourhood, which has by blush-toned tiles and a circular mirror.

      130 William skyscraper model apartment by David Adjaye
      Built within an apartment in David Adjaye’s 130 William skyscraper in New York, this bathroom is lined with serrated grey marble tiles and has a wooden sink unit with a matching profile.

      Pioneer Square Loft by Plum Design and Corey Kingston
      The bathroom facilities in this loft apartment in Seattle are located in a custom-built L-shaped wooden box in one of the room’s corners, which is topped with a bedroom.
      A washroom, shower, toilet and sauna are each located in different boxes that are each clad in wood charred using the traditional Japanese technique known as Shou Sugi Ban.

      VS House by Sārānsh
      The bathroom in VS House by Sārānsh in Ahmedabad, India, combines two clashing Indian stone finishes. Floors and walls are made from flecked grey tiles, while an emerald-coloured marble surrounds the toilets and mirror.

      Nagatachō Apartment by Adam Nathaniel Furman
      Forming part of the brightly coloured Nagatachō Apartment, which Adam Nathaniel Furman designed to be a “visual feast”, this bathroom combines a blue-tiled with milky-orange-tiled walls. A sky blue vanity unit, lemon-yellow towel rail and taps, and pink toilet complete the colourful composition.

      Kyle House by GRAS
      This holiday home in Scotland was designed by Architecture studio GRAS to have a “monastically simple” interior. This is extended into the bathroom, which has grey walls and a shower space clad with large black tiles.

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      Neri&Hu keeps time-worn details in Parisian restaurant Papi

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      A huge cylindrical volume clad in white tiles sits amongst aged stone walls inside Papi, a restaurant in Paris designed by Neri&Hu.Papi can be found in the French capital’s ninth arrondissement, taking over the ground floor of a 19th-century Haussmann building.

      Top image: the exterior of Papi. Above: steel-framed windows can be pushed back to open up the restaurant to the street
      Rather than modernising the 52-square-metre site of the restaurant, Neri&Hu has instead tried to showcase the “layers of material heritage” that denote the building’s long and storied past.
      The Shanghai-based studio explained the building works had to be carried out “as carefully as an archaeological dig”.

      Neri & Hu stripped back the interior to expose old brick and limestone surfaces

      “Every single existing element was meticulously examined, and the challenge was in resisting the urge to fix every imperfection, to instead honour the imprint of time upon each surface,” added Neri&Hu.
      “Each fragment represents a different period in Paris’ history, forming a beautiful yet challenging existing canvas for [Neri&Hu] to intervene.”

      The dining area is enclosed within a cylindrical volume
      Wallcoverings and finishes that have built up over the years from previous occupants have been peeled back to reveal the building’s older brick or limestone surfaces.
      Aged stone moulding that borders the entrance door has also been exposed, and a slim cut-out has been made in the facade to reveal an existing steel lintel.
      Similar steel has been used to frame the expansive panels of glazing that front the restaurant. These can be slid back during the warmer months, diffusing the boundary between Papi’s diners and passersby on the street.

      Slim white tiles clad the inside and outside of the volume
      The most significant contemporary addition that Neri&Hu have made to the interior is a towering cylindrical volume that encompasses Papi’s eating area.
      Clad in narrow white tiles, the volume has been placed slightly off-centre so that it butts up against the right-hand side of the restaurant.

      Neri&Hu looked to “traditional courtyard house typology” for Tsingpu Yangzhou Retreat

      Inside are a handful of wooden dining tables and chairs. Guests can alternatively opt to sit on one of the bench seats that have been fitted in the birch plywood-lined openings running around the perimeter of the volume.

      The volume hugs against the restaurant’s right-hand wall
      Other than a couple of tube lights – specifically chosen by Neri&Hu to stand in “stark modern contrast” to the crumbling stone walls – decor in Papi has been kept to a minimum.
      A few mirrors have also been incorporated within the cylinder.
      “[The mirrors] create dynamic perspectives and voyeuristic moments between interior and exterior, but also invite guests within to cross gazes,” concluded the studio.

      Bench seats have been integrated into the volume’s openings
      Neri&Hu has been established since 2004. Other projects that the studio has completed this year include a cultural centre in Beijing that’s covered with aluminium louvres and a hotel in Taipei that takes design cues from the city’s urban landscape.
      Photography is by Simone Bossi.

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      Edition Office rearranges The Melburnian Apartment around oak wood volumes

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      Towering, pale wood volumes hide the functional elements of this apartment in Melbourne, Australia which has been overhauled by local architecture studio Edition Office.The Melburnian Apartment – which is shortlisted in the apartment interior category of this year’s Dezeen Awards – is set within a residential building in the Southbank neighbourhood, overlooking the city’s arts precinct and royal botanical gardens.
      Prior to Edition Office’s intervention, it had featured several rectilinear rooms that were awkwardly crammed into the apartment’s crescent-shaped floor plan.

      The Melburnian Apartment is arranged around volumes made from oak wood

      The studio was asked by the young couple who own the apartment to create a less restrictive, easy-going layout that was more suited to their often unpredictable social lives.
      After knocking through a majority of the existing plaster-board partition walls, Edition Office decided to tuck away the functional elements of the home inside a trio of full-height storage volumes.

      A kitchen is hidden behind one of the volumes
      “The design response is inherently simple, refined and calming – which restores and creates freedom,” explained the studio.
      “Circulation drifts and flows around the formal partitioning elements, allowing for a space with no doors,” it added. “In this way, the clients move from sleep to morning coffee to home office to showering to washing to working to thinking in a continually evolving and smooth loop.”

      White oak wood lines the outside of the volumes. Photo is by Kim Bridgland of Edition Office
      Each of the rounded volumes are externally lined with oiled white oak wood, while the insides are clad with grey granite tiles – two materials that the studio thought would offset the apartment building’s “textural aloofness”.
      One of the volumes contains a kitchen, which has been minimally finished with handleless timber cupboards. The second volume has been in-built with a sofa upholstered in tan-brown leather and a small desk, which are meant to have the same feel as a study cubicle in a library.

      The inside of the volumes are clad with granite tiles
      The third and final volume has been made to curve around a freestanding desk to form a larger home office. Several steel shelves have been incorporated so that the inhabitants have a place to display their wide array of novels.
      An additional bathroom is also integrated into the back of this volume, which is almost entirely covered with slim white tiles. It also includes a marble-effect vanity cabinet.

      Another one of the volumes curves around a study with steel bookshelves. Photo is by Kim Bridgland of Edition Office
      Edition Office has carefully arranged the volumes to provide shade to living spaces, which were often flooded with sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling window that curves around the apartment’s front elevation.

      Black pavilion filled with glass yams examines colonisation in Australia

      “Their curved forms invite light and shadow to drift and smear around corners, and allow for a home that has too much natural daylight to provide the sanctuary of shadow and the textural delight that comes with it,” added the studio.
      The volumes also block sightlines to the master bedroom in the corner of the apartment, which is simply separated from the rest of the plan by a raw-linen curtain.

      This volume also includes a white-tile bathroom
      Edition Office was established in 2016 and is led by Kim Bridgland and Aaron Roberts. The studio was named as emerging architect of the year in the 2019 Dezeen Awards.
      In this year’s awards, its Melburnian Apartment will compete against projects such as La Nave by Nomos, a flat in Madrid that occupies an abandoned workshop, and Jaffa House 4 by Pitsou Kedem Architects, an apartment that’s set inside a 300-year-old brick building in Tel Aviv.
      Photography is by Ben Hosking unless stated otherwise.

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      About Time: Fashion and Duration exhibition at The Met celebrates 150 years of fashion

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      Set designer Es Devlin has created two clock-like gallery spaces for the latest fashion exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which compares design over 150 years.The Met’s Costume Institute opens About Time: Fashion and Duration at the museum’s Fifth Avenue location on 29 October –  the original planned opening in May 2020 was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
      Featured fashion dates back 150 years to 1870 to coincide with The Met’s 150th anniversary. Rather than presenting designs chronologically, the exhibition mixes up the timeline in order to compare the cyclical nature of fashion across the years.

      Above image: the all-bacl Clock One gallery space. Top image: the mirrored Clock Two gallery space

      “About Time: Fashion and Duration considers the ephemeral nature of fashion, employing flashbacks and fast-forwards to reveal how it can be both linear and cyclical,” said The Met director Max Hollein.
      “The result is a show that presents a nuanced continuum of fashion over the museum’s 150-year history.”
      Devlin, who has created stage sets for musicians The Weekend and Katy Perry, worked with The Met’s Design Department to create a time-travelling-themed exhibition.

      White markings or light divide galleries into 60 “minutes”
      It is located in two galleries in the museum’s Iris and B Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall that are in a circular formation like a clock. Called Clock One and Clock Two, they have different material finishes. The former is nearly all black, and the latter is covered in mirrors.
      White markings on the floor or thin white lights punctuate both spaces, resembling the marks on a clock face.
      These marks split the galleries into 60 segments or “minutes”. Each minute showcases two garments – one that follows time chronologically and another from a different time period to showcase similarities or differences in form.

      One of the spaces is covered in mirrors
      Examples include an 1870s black silk faille princess-line dress paired with a 1990s Alexander McQueen skirt and a mid-1890s silk satin dress with puffed sleeves contrasted by 2004 Comme des Garçons ensemble.
      “Fashion is indelibly connected to time,” said Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu curator in charge of The Costume Institute.
      “It not only reflects and represents the spirit of the times, but it also changes and develops with the times, serving as an especially sensitive and accurate timepiece.”

      It is located in two galleries in the museum’s Iris and B Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall
      There are 125 fashions in the exhibition with a number sourced from The Costume Insitute’s collection. It includes work from well-known contemporary and historic designers and brands like Virgil Abloh, Azzedine Alaïa, Jonathan Anderson, Iris van Herpen, Karl Lagerfeld and Vivienne Westwood.
      First announced last year, The Met’s About Time exhibition is based on French 20th-century philosopher Henri Bergson’s idea of time as la durée, or duration – something which can be measured through images but never perceived as a whole.

      The Met celebrates “resurgence of camp” in new exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion

      The Met closed its main building on Fifth Avenue, as well as its Met Breuer and Met Cloisters locations, in early March in response to the emergence of outbreaks of coronavirus in New York City.
      In lieu of the spring opening, the museum created a virtual version of About Time: Fashion and Duration on Youtube.

      Garments include this spring/summer 2020 haute couture by Viktor + Rolf
      The annual Costume Institute Benefit, also known as the Met Gala, was due to take place in May 2020 to coincide with the original opening of the exhibition. It was also cancelled due to the pandemic.
      The Met’s Costume Institute organises a spring exhibition every year. Last year’s exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion celebrated the “resurgence of camp”, while the 2018 showcase Heavenly Bodies was themed on religion.
      Others have included a retrospective of Comme des Garcons founder Rei Kawakubo, a study of handcraft and machine production and an exploration of China.

      About Time will run from 29 October 2020 to 7 February 2021. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Connected virtual exhibition sees nine designers craft carbon-negative furniture from hardwoods

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      Dezeen promotion: a range of carbon-negative furniture items created by designers including Ini Archibong and Thomas Heatherwick for London’s Design Museum can now be viewed as part of a permanent virtual exhibition.Jointly commissioned by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), Benchmark Furniture and the Design Museum, the Connected exhibition tasked nine designers with creating a table and seating object for their own home offices.

      Top: Studiopepe’s geometric table and chair. Above: The Connected exhibition was on show at London’s Design Museum
      Designed for their personal use, each designer’s creation was made to suit their new ways of living and working from home as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
      The exhibition aimed to explore how designers and craftspeople have adapted their working methods during lockdown.
      Designers were also invited to record video diaries documenting the process of creating their pieces, which have been compiled and made into a documentary.

      Ini Archibong’s design was informed by the rock formations of The Giant’s Causeway

      Participants included Archibong, who is based in Switzerland, London-based Heatherwick Studio, Jaime Hayon from Spain and Netherlands-based Sabine Marcelis.
      Other designers involved were Maria Bruun, Sebastian Herkner, Maria Jeglinska-Adamczewska, Studiopepe and Studio Swine.

      Ini Archibong designs rock-like furniture with its own drainage system

      While Archibong took cues from the undulating rock formations of Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland for his Kadamba Gate table and seating design, Heatherwick Studio created a modular desk with wooden planters for legs.
      The nine furniture pieces were displayed at London’s Design Museum from 11 September to 11 October. The show, which was digitally scanned by V21 Artspace, is now permanently available to view online as a virtual exhibition.

      Thomas Heatherwick designed a table with planters as legs for the Connected project
      Each design was made from a choice of three sustainable American hardwoods: red oak, maple or cherry. According to AHEC, the resulting collection of objects removed more carbon from the atmosphere than they generated.
      “When considered as a group, the Connected designs are better than carbon neutral,” said AHEC. “The total global warming potential (GWP) – often referred to as the ‘carbon footprint’ – of the nine Connected designs is minus 342 kilograms of CO2 equivalent.”

      Heatherwick Studio unveils modular desk with wooden planter legs

      “It takes a little over 10 seconds for the hardwood logs harvested to manufacture all the Connected designs to be replaced by new growth in the US forest,” it continued.
      “The full environmental Life Cycle Assessments on each of the nine projects prove that these pieces are environmentally sound, going beyond carbon neutrality and leaving a negative carbon footprint.”

      Sabine Marcelis designed a work-from-home cubicle with a bright yellow interior for the show
      Details on the exhibition can be found via the Design Museum website, while more information on the work AHEC does can be found on its webpage.

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      A-nrd looks to Mexico to craft interiors of Kol restaurant in London

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      Yucatán, Oaxaca and Mexico City are some of the places that the founder of studio A-nrd visited in preparation of designing the interiors of Kol, a restaurant in central London. Kol is situated in the capital’s Marylebone neighbourhood. It’s headed up by notable chef Santiago Lastra, who has designed the menu of the two-storey restaurant
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      Old gymnasium transformed into lofty apartment in Amsterdam

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      Wooden detailing and black-painted steel fill the lofty interiors of The Gymnasium apartment that Robbert De Goede has built within an old sports hall in the Netherlands.Located near the centre of Amsterdam, the adaptive reuse project was developed by local studio Robbert De Goede as an unconventional yet homely dwelling for a family of four.
      The Gymnasium is shortlisted for apartment interior of the year at the Dezeen Awards and was the winner of the Dezeen Awards 2020 public vote for the same category.

      The Gymnasium is built within an old sports hall

      “The objective was to design an intimate, liveable home,” said Robbert De Goede.
      “This resulted in a minimal, industrial approach towards the architecture and a very personal approach towards the finishes, which reflects the clients as well – the owner of a fashion brand and a paediatrician,” the studio explained.
      “They are a very down to earth family, which resulted in a very spacious and luxurious home, but definitely not a showroom for design props.”

      The apartment’s living spaces are at ground level
      The Gymnasium’s main living areas are contained on the ground floor, while a new mezzanine level inserted around the gymnasium’s perimeter hosts the bedrooms and bathrooms.
      A basement, which formed part of the original building, contains a gym and a sauna, alongside the dwelling’s technical equipment.

      Steel window frames have been added to complement the existing structure
      The basement was originally only 1.2 metres in height, so to ensure its usability, the studio raised its ceiling – creating a cosy, elevated living room above it at ground level.
      This living area is accessed by a bleacher-like staircase and is intended to offer the family a secluded, intimate seating area, reading space or home cinema.

      An elevated sitting area is positioned above an existing basement
      The only original element of The Gymansium that was retained was its existing steel structure, which was initially hidden behind a flat ceiling.
      This ceiling was removed as part of the construction process to create the apartment’s loft-like atmosphere and also introduce 10 skylights that maximise the light inside.

      Old Spanish workshop converted into tactile family home by Nomos

      To complement The Gymansium’s existing structure, Robbert De Goede designed the new mezzanine level with a matching black-painted steel structure.
      This is left exposed throughout, and paired with a black staircase and window frames.

      Wooden details and furnishings are used to warm the apartment
      Another key addition of the apartment is its new foundation, which features 18-metre-long piles that contain a heat-exchanging system to help heat and cool the dwelling.
      Teamed with 44 rooftop solar panels that provide electricity, this heat-exchanging system is designed to reduce the dwelling’s carbon footprint.

      A black-painted staircase leads up to a new mezzanine level
      The interior finishes of The Gymnasium are characterised by a combination of different wood finishes and tactile furnishings.
      According to Robbert De Goede, this was to warm its industrial structure and create a “building you can touch, maybe even smell sometimes”.

      The mezzanine level contains the bedrooms and bathrooms
      Among the wooden details are chunky central columns, the rough countertop made from larch in the kitchen and unfinished oak on the underside of the mezzanine level.
      The smooth stair railings, which are made from yellow cedar, are modelled on the work of Japanese sculptor Shimpei Arima who uses cedar to create tactile sculptures that offer comfort to users.
      Each space is complete with sculptural lighting by the likes of Delta Light, Bocci and Tom Dixon, alongside furnishings ranging from one-off vintage pieces to statement furniture by Stella Works, Flexform and Lucie Koldova.

      A bathroom on The Gymnasium’s mezzanine level
      The Gymnasium is one of five dwellings shortlisted for apartment interior of the year at the Dezeen Awards 2020. This includes the La Nave apartment in Madrid that Nomos built within a former print shop and Coffey Architects’ overhaul of a Grade II-listed school classroom.
      Other recent adaptive reuse projects on Dezeen include Richard Parr Associates’ self-designed studio in a 19th-century barn in the Cotswolds and an old nylon factory that was converted into “cathedral-like” office space by HofmanDujardin and Schipper Bosch.
      Photography is by Marcel van der Burg.

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      Lim + Lu bridges old and new inside Yung's Bistro in Hong Kong

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      Multidisciplinary studio Lim + Lu has based the interior of Yung’s Bistro in Hong Kong on the rich history of its 78-year-old sister restaurant.Yung’s Bistro is an offshoot of esteemed Hong Kong restaurant, Yung Kee, which was founded by Kam Shui-fai as a modest outdoor food stall – known as a dai pai dong – before a brick-and-mortar restaurant was opened in 1942.
      Over the past 78 years the restaurant, which is still in operation, has become revered for its take on Cantonese cuisine and is particularly well known for its roast goose dish.

      Top image: the interior of Yung’s Bistro. Above: a communal table anchors the more casual dining section of the restaurant

      The newly launched Yung’s Bistro is presided over by Shui-fai’s granddaughter, who tasked local studio Lim + Lu with devising a contemporary interior scheme that honours the humble beginnings of its predecessor, Yung Kee.
      “For this project, the client’s brief is rather abstract; remembering their roots while paving the path for the future,” said the studio, which is led by Vincent Lim and Elaine Lu.
      “It was important that the design draws inspiration from the flagship restaurant and allows customers to recognize that this new restaurant is born of the same meticulous DNA towards food preparation and detail-oriented customer service.”

      The tiled drinks bar sits beneath a gridded brass framework
      A subtle mix of old and new has therefore been incorporated throughout Yung’s Bistro, which is loosely divided into two halves.
      The front half of the restaurant plays host to a more casual dining area. At its centre is a communal brass-edged dining table, included as a wink to Yung Kee’s early days as a food stall when customers would often have to share tables because of the scarcity of space in the surrounding alleyway.
      The table is surrounded by green-velvet chairs with slim brass legs, while a series of lantern-like pendant lights by Danish designer Lucie Kass dangle overhead.

      One wall is lined with patterned tiles with brushed-gold detailing
      A corrugated wall runs down one side of the casual dining area, serving as a backdrop to the drinks bar. The curved, C-shaped counter of the bar is clad with sea-green tiles, contrasting the pink stool seats that have been placed directly in front.
      Glassware and trailing plants are openly displayed in a gridded brass framework that’s been suspended from the ceiling. It’s meant to loosely resemble the bamboo scaffolding which is often used in the construction of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers.

      Lim + Lu transforms Hong Kong warehouse into home for two artists, four dogs and a cat

      The wall behind the restaurant’s cashier desk and merchandise shelves are lined with patterned green tiles with brushed-gold detailing, which were cast from tiles that were installed in Yung Kee in 1978.

      The formal dining section of Yung’s Bistro lies at the rear of the restaurantt
      A formal dining area lies in the rear half of Yung’s Bistro, which monochromatic flooring and circular dining tables that Lim + Lu says are more traditional to Chinese restaurants.
      Chefs can be seen bustling away at work in the kitchen through a sequence of brass windows that run down the side of the room.
      “This view of the kitchen is atypical of Chinese cuisine – however, when the kitchen prepares the goose that made its predecessor one of the most famous restaurants in town, it is a true attraction,” the studio explained.

      Screened windows peek through to the kitchen
      Each of the windows has been fitted with a slatted screen that can be drawn down if the chefs in the kitchen want more privacy.
      When drawn-up the screens almost create an awning over the dining tables, another nod to dai pai dong culture where unfurled awning typically symbolises that a food stall is open for business.
      “Yung’s Bistro serves as a quintessential bridge between old and new, a traditional cultural cuisine of Hong Kong meeting more western and contemporary values,” added the studio. “It is a lesson in respecting what has come before, but also the courage for innovation.”

      This side of the restaurant features monochromatic flooring and circular dining tables
      Lim + Lu was established in 2015. Other Hong Kong projects by the studio include the revamp of a fashion designer’s apartment, which was brightened up with pops of yellow, turquoise and coral-pink, and the transformation of an old warehouse into a home for two artists and their five pets.
      Photography is by Lit Ma of Common Studio.

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